


Peer

by imperiality (orphan_account)



Series: Just a Small Town Girl [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alfor is a retired Marine, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Ballet Dancer Allura, F/M, Fluff, For reasons, Guitar Player Keith, Guitars, Modern Era, Mutual Pining, No Angst, Pining, Small Towns, also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 14:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13273137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/imperiality
Summary: Keith just wants a little change in his little small town. When it comes by the way of a new member at the dance studio, he can't seem to tear his eyes away from the windows.This may be just the kind of change he was looking for.(Ballet!Allura and GuitarPlayer!Keith)





	Peer

**Author's Note:**

> all credit to @natdashg

Keith has lived in this small town for… oh. Geez. Forever?

He remembers every birthday up until he was 8 being hosted in the very same house he got his first car in. 

Keith’s dad had a stable job. He himself made decent grades at school. (Not taking into account marks against report cards for disciplinary necessity.)

Life was okay.

Is okay.

Life is quiet above all things. He’s walked to all 3 of the schools he’s ever attended. He’s tried every club, activity or group his dad pushed him into. He knows all the cool coffeeshops in the area; the owners that have come and gone with them.

He’s seen supermarkets turn into shopping strips. He’s seen empty fields turn to bustling theaters. He’s seen time move its wand over the sleepy people of his town. He can’t not notice the change. He can’t not feel it in personal, tangible ways. 

When his friends have moved; he’s felt that. When his grades changed and he graduated; he felt that.

He’s felt everything from changing schools, changing years and changing skies. Change is difficult not to feel.

Change is so _conspicuous_ in Keith’s small town. It’s hard to miss.

One day in autumn, a sort of monochrome afternoon, change comes in the way of a girl.

Woman?

If her smooth dark skin, bright white hair, and slim lithe body didn’t demarcate change, he doesn’t know-

Where was he going with this?

Keith has been going to this music shop for… pfft. Forever? He’s cool with the owner and stuck around for guitar lessons when the only person patient enough to teach him worked there. It all just kind of worked out. 

Sure, customers and employees come and go. But honestly? They never look any different. As he passes the ballet studio to his music lesson, the woman behind the glass window could not exude _difference_ any more.

It’s refreshing.

It’s change. 

It’s _mesmerizing._

Keith slinks his guitar case behind his back, and just… watches. He watches as the lady rises and falls on the points of her toes. He parks himself in the middle of the sidewalk and watches the new girl flex and point, flex and point. Flex… and point…

Apparently the music stops, so there’s a still moment. The rest of the class nods to the teacher when slowly, ever so minutely,

_Shoot! She’s looking this way!_

-she locks eyes right with Keith.

He is stunned.

She is frozen.

Before her instructor can catch on, she nods to him, then faces back towards the mirrors. It’s brief. It’s quick. It’s so _sudden_ that Keith doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

He starts to feel a stressing weight on his bicep.

 _What is_ -

His guitar! His _lesson_ , hello!

The frazzled boy turns away, shucks his case back up his arm, then old-lady speedwalks to the shop. 

Before him he sees rich skin stretching pink tights. Beside him he sees the fluttering fabric of twirling skirts. (Within him, he feels the racing of his thundering heart.) 

Above him he hears the jarring twinkling of bells. He skids to a stop. Huffing, catching his breath, readjusting his strap- he thinks he’s flustered for more than one reason.

“Keith. Good of you to join us.” Shiro smirks. 

Now, Shiro’s a pretty chill guy. Not lax, but he’ll probably commiserate tardiness after seeing the most _unique and distracting person in all of his 19 years of living,_ right? Or. 24. That’s what Keith said. 

But his instructor is smart. Smarter than Keith’s own good. If he knows Shiro at all, he knows there’s no bother in diffusing his blush.

_God am I actually blushing? What the hell-_

“Gonna take a seat?” the bemused man outstretches his arm. “Today, maybe?”

“O-oh. Sorry. Shiro. Sorry, yeah. Yeah.” Keith shakes out his hair, ties it up, and pulls out his guitar.

“Ooh, we brought the electric today. We hooking up your amp?”

“Yes, please.”

And somehow between all their set-up, Keith manages not to drop a single thing. Tangle a single cord. Somehow.

Behind the register, the shop’s phone rings.

“You keeping tuning while I get this, alright?” Shiro rises from his chair and pads to the other side of the store. Keith does as he’s told, if with a little trepidation.

He plugs in the guitar. Turns the amp. He strums and _I gotta turn that right the hell down_ , and plays… like. Like never before.

He’s never played so _self-consciously_. His playing is so quiet in fact, Shiro can’t even hear him. (When more often than not, he has to kindly encourage Keith to shut up.) 

 _You know the dancers can feel your playing through the floor!_ Shiro with his thinning patience will stress.

Oh yeah.

Keith forgot to mention that, didn’t he. 

The dance studio is right next door.

This is a change he’ll be feeling most acutely.

 

After about her 20th move, Allura has stopped keeping track. _Once a Marine, always a Marine;_ isn’t that so true. Her father had felt the burden of his wife’s death the hardest, and since, he couldn’t seem to let the military life go. Their record for staying in one house was just shy of 3 years. For real.

Change and Transition have become Allura’s mantras.

She doesn’t mind it, though. Not in the slightest. She’s seen so much, she’s met so many people. She’s had so much excitement! Sometimes though, she wishes for less. She really doesn’t think she needs all this excitement. She really doesn’t care for all this motion. 

Childhood sweetheart love she’ll never have. Small town feelings she’ll never understand. Sometimes, she can’t help but feel like a whole other life has been cheated from her. 

Would she change the busy for world? Hardly. But sometimes… she could go for a little slow.

Maybe that’s why she’s so fond of this new small town she and her father are in. (So small, could it be called a village?) Maybe she likes that downtown Main Street is the busiest it ever gets. All 4 blocks of it. She likes that cars always yield to pedestrians. She likes all the little boutiques around town, she likes the quiet.

The loudest it’ll ever get in this town comes from her new dance studio’s speakers. 

She’s fond of all the sweet people she’s met in her ballet class, too. (Even if. You know. She’s the only Not White person there. Although, that’s not a terribly new experience so can let it slide a bit for now.) 

All the class times seemed to bend around her schedule, so she thought _why not_? She can like slow all she wants, but _lugubrious_ will never sit well with her. Enrolling herself after her college-hiatus, the little color of routine is all the busy she’ll need.

Slipping her leotard back on was like slipping into water. Pinning her hair to its neat bun revealed the person Allura’s been missing for a while. 

Retying her pointe shoes after her third week of class? _Walking on air._

The comfort of knotting the ribbons after so long was the start of many comforts. The promise of longevity in staying in this small town was the next. (“ _You_ promise _we’re going to break our 3-year record, right father?_ ” she often reminds.) Her new friends at the studio easily follow in such comfort.

There's only one thing that’s breaking all the comforting feelings she’s been experiencing. One thing. One, single solitary sensation.

And it’s happening right now.

It’s happening behind her. She’s sure of it.

Okay, so the thing is Allura is actually in class right now? And her instructor is teaching them another floor routine, so she can’t really… look behind her to check. But she wants to. There’s this creeping feeling that’s tickling its way up and down Allura’s arm, but she can’t check yet because the woman keeps talking but this feeling is still persisting but then-

the woman takes just a short pause.

Allura turns behind her.

Ah. So he’s what it was.

Wait.

 _He_?

Allura absolutely locks in place. From the other side of the studio windows, a young man with a guitar stands gazing. 

Right. At. Allura.

Instead of her arms, the fuzzy static feeling runs all over Allura’s chest but she can’t let it. She mustn’t. 

(Oh but she so very much wants to. How intriguing is he with his deep, dark eyes. His long, darker hair. How cozy and soft and appealing and _startled_ looks he in his layered jackets. His unwrapped scarf. His guitar so slowly, slowly slipping down down down.)

Registering with a muffle like she’s underwater, the instructor clears her throat somewhere far, far away. 

_Come back to Earth, Allura._

Oh sure. She’ll come right back. As soon as her heartbeat does, too.

Amidst her manic heart and cottoned hearing, she nods to him who stands on the other side. Sharply she turns back to class and decides to will the whole exchange out of her head.

Except… how can she? How can she _possibly_ be expected to get those dusk-dark eyes staring _right at her_ out of her head? What, is she supposed to like, _ignore_ the undivided intensity in his stare while she dances? She trusts herself to multitask. She can think of his handsome posture when controlling her _battements_. She can let her mind wander while she straightens her _frappé_. 

She can do her _fouettés_ , while she thinks of some arms she wouldn’t mind being caught by belong to-

Oh.

Class is over.

Already?

She didn’t even feel any music through the floor this time. The drummers, naturally, are the most notorious for their disruptions. 

It took longer than she wants to admit getting over it, but now that she know she can hear music _just softly_ through the ground… she. She was really looking forward to hearing that boy play.

She’s wondering how many times, if any, that he stood outside those windows just waiting for her to turn around. She’s wondering if she _has_ heard him play before. Would she have already learned to tune out the music by then?

She’s wondering if she won’t be able to hear him play again.

No. You know what? Most of all, she’s wondering how with just a _look_ , her mind has turned from hardly busy to _over-frantic_. How can one person have so much power?

How is this small town the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

_How can she make it so that she can see his face again?_

 

If Keith walks maybe 10 minutes earlier to his class, Shiro will play dumb. 10 minutes isn’t that long, anyway. It isn’t! And if he’s going to use those minutes to see if he can’t spot the new ballerina in the window? Well then that’s his business. 

But maybe also probably hers, too. Probably. He knows it. He knows that going out into Old Town 10 whole minutes before his class starts just to watch some girl he’s never going to even _meet_ will likely be frowned upon in most countries, but. He can’t stop. 

Keith has to see her dance again. He has to see her move. Her gentle reaching, her graceful extending. He was watching a professional. 

When he saw her dance, he saw an _angel_. Is he supposed to resist being graced by the divine? He thinks not.

Hence his 10 minutes early.

10 minutes, and that’s all he needs to slow his walk, mosey next to the studio’s windows and… wait. He doesn’t want to be terribly conspicuous, but he really has no choice but to be. Keith idles his feet, his arms. His legs, he just kicks invisible pebbles until-

Ah. There she is.

The women are in 2 rows, his favorite dancer (blessedly) being the leftmost positioned. _Closest to the door._ They do this quick and exhausting-looking jump combination and Keith feels. Well. At first he was going to say impressed, but he doesn’t think that’s entirely correct. Gob-smacked? Closer.

No. He knows what he is. He’s _humbled._

Ballet has always been a kind of ambivalent thing to Keith. Sure he’s seen The Nutcracker with his dad maybe twice, but that’s about it. Ballet is something he’s never really payed attention to.

Now watching the woman in a rich pink leotard, jumping and switching and feet never meeting the floor? He doesn’t know why he didn’t pay attention before.

(Maybe it’s only now that he’s been given something to pay attention _to_.)

Humbled. Yeah, he could probably stand to be put in his place more often. He’s humbled… and. And _late! Crap!!_

He does his funny shuffle-walk over to the shop, and Shiro only shakes his head. “You get what you pay for, you know.”

Keith _does_ know. He knows he can’t afford to keep being late. He knows he can’t afford to keep standing in front of the dance studio like a fool, not-so-subtly watching a dancer he’s only seen once before.

One more time can’t hurt, though. Right?

 

Allura doesn’t see the mysterious guitar player come around this time. Why is it that she feels so inappropriately disappointed? This beautiful stranger doesn’t owe her any of his time; none of his chance gazes.

None of his playing.

Not only is she disappointed in the presence of his silence, but also bloody _livid_. If she can’t see his sharp, angled face and disarming, distracting expressions than the least the universe can do is give her music! 

Give to her his melodious guitar-strumming! Or if he’s into the obnoxious, grungy stuff! She’d be fine with that too. She’s not picky. She has simple needs, and right now, all them include sitting down on the wooden floor and listening to the boy’s strumming carrying from the other side.

If she stays… what. An extra 10 minutes to hear it happen? She can take her laces off a little slower. She can pull out her wool strand by strand. Who's actually going to notice?

And if she… closes her eyes… just to center her sensory intake… Well. At that point she knows everyone’s going to notice, but at that point, she’s not really going to care.

Straining and straining, Allura draws her eyebrows close in concentration. She begs to feel something, _anything_ coming through the floor. Anything more than a hummingbird-wing vibration, that is.

She begs silently. She pleads insistently. She sits patiently. Even with all her sitting and pleading and begging, she knows she can’t actually wait 10 entire minutes to hear some random guy play his guitar. There’s another class waiting to start after hers.

So for today, she’ll wrap up her pointe shoes and slip them back into her bag. She’ll wrap up her distant dissatisfaction and slip it back into her chest. 

 

Their little cycle goes back and forth.

4 days out of the week, Allura takes her hour long ballet classes and finds herself a new, comfortable groove. 3 days out of the week, Keith walks himself to his guitar classes with Shiro. He fights internally not to bump his attendance up for the off chance to see the dancer. 

Before Keith’s class begins, he slows his steps in front of the studio windows so watch Allura do a _fouetté_ or 2. Do a few _pirouettes_ or so. Before she can look back to him, he kicks himself back into gear and gets himself ready for his lesson.

Before Allura’s class ends, she’ll sit herself down as close to the border of the walls as she can. She’ll take her sweet time putting everything away, putting her shirt back over her leotard and be patient.

Patient.

Will she be rewarded _for_ it?

It’s only been what, like. A month now since-

Wait.

It’s been a whole month already? Apparently so.

A whole month has passed, but the most of what Allura has heard has been through proxy. It’s good, though. Because what she’s hearing has been getting _louder_. Every week that passes brings Keith’s strumming up just a few more decibels. What used to be a light, beating wing is now a deep, heavy drone.

The weeks continue. 

Keith glances and plays on.

Allura dances and listens on.

Keith would have to cauterize every nerve in his brain not to know just how much Shiro’s catching on. (For as much as he is Keith’s teacher, he is doubly Keith’s brother.) 

“What’s got you so distracted lately?” he’ll ask.

“Nothing. Nothing, it’s nothing.” Keith will answer.

And they both completely understand is a bold-faced lie. Shiro can wait, however, He knows when the time comes, that whole lot of “nothing” will reach his ears first.

Allura knows her fellow ballerinas must be catching on to _something_. She doesn’t know exactly what they’re catching on to, or just how silly they think she’s being because of it, but she knows they’re too polite to ask. (It’s just as well; there’s nothing to tell.)

 _That’s what’s killing me the most!_ Allura shakes the aggravation from her head, and realigns her _tournés_. Sadly, no amount of shaking or spinning can take the ichor away from her. 

The more she turns, the sharper she points the smoother her _adagio_ , there’s only one person now that she wants clapping for her. She’s thinking, imagining and dreaming beyond her wits end and there’s _nothing to show for it._  

That. That is what’s killing her the most.

Will she address it? 

No. Not at all. Not in the slightest.

For right now, both parties are content staying in the grey area of wanting but not having. Dreaming, but not realizing. Seeing, hearing, but not tasting or touching.

(They can both pretend to be content, but the “ifs” are having their way too much with them. With that in mind, are they _actually_ content? The general consensus should be no. Not probably at all. Not in the slightest.)

 

Keith has been trying to catch Allura’s eye for… yikes. Forever? 

 _“You could introduce yourself before class. You know that, right? Or wait until after class, that might work better.”_ Encouraging… Shiro can attempt. 

“ _No! No, I can't do that Shiro, no! That's something that can't just_ happen."

And that’ll be the end of that.

 

Allura has lost track of how many times she’s sat at the wall that separates the studio and the music shop. No one has dared to pull her away. No one’s even approached her afterwards to ask about her dazy face. Her arbitrary smiles. 

After the second month of attending classes at the studio, Allura has stopped counting how many times she’s been startled to find the dark-haired admirer at the window.

She’s almost embarrassed to admit, but for a few days there, her misplaced anxiety would not stop eating at her.

 _What if he’s just… an odd boy like that?_ (Impossible. The ballet instructor has seen him pass by many times before. He’s never done what he’s doing before.) _Okay, well then. What if he’s younger than he actually looks?_ (Impossible as well. Allura’s been assured he can’t be any younger than 18.) _But… What if… What if she’s not the one he’s even looking at?_

Now Allura just _knows_ that’s silly.

She’s been checking.

Whenever she felt an energy, a force behind her back, she would snap her eyes outside and there would he be. Only ever looking at her.

 

 _That is so creepy, and you_ know _it!_ Keith plucks and strums out his consternation. He always seems to want what he can’t have, so he’s learned to play it away. This beautiful stranger is no different.

That is until Shiro, gracious genius Shiro helps him consider to “Make something conducive of your frustrations.”

“How do you mean?” 

“I mean,” he’ll say as he drums his knee. “Do what writers do. What poets do. What I used to do.”

“…I still don’t know what you mean,” Keith tilts his head with a blank expression.

Poor boy. Shiro helps him along. “I mean in reference to… whatever’s been going on with you lately. If there’s something you’re thinking about that you can’t _talk_ about? Play about it. Put it to music. Does that make sense?”

And honestly, that is the first thing that has made any sort of sense to Keith for months. (Which is its own particular breed of sad, but he’ll get into that later.) 

That is… that is such a _good idea_ , Keith can’t stop thinking about it. The more he ruminates on it, the more appealing it is to him. And honestly? Why didn’t he think of it himself? This isn’t something he can go to Shiro for in good conscious. There’s no way in Hell he’s going to his dad about this.

His sheet music he knows is going to be the most receptive audience of all.

He doesn’t waste any time playing around with chords after his scheduled time, shooting the breeze with Shiro. Instead, he busts his ass getting home and plops himself down. He lets his fingers _fly._

Music writing isn’t entirely new to Keith. He’s tried his hand a couple of times, but has produced nothing he’d make available for public consumption. Or private consumption. He’d slave over every note and melody, but still find all of it _lacking._

With the unknown dancer as his silent muse? His hands can’t seem to keep up with his inspiration.

By the end of the week he has a full song ready for playing. He presents it to Shiro, who nods and gestures to the chair in front of him.

“Play, then.”

And he does.

For his music, he didn’t bother with any lyrics. He simply let himself be caught and swept up with all the connotations of the nameless ballerina.

 

The song starts soft. A gentle, staccato plucking moves its way from the shop’s speakers to across the studio’s mirrors. Allura listens in, and it feels like a sigh.

No heavier, but faster does the boy from across the division play. The melody is something sweet. It’s something that can wrap Allura in a tight embrace. It’s not lively, but it’s… It’s lovely.

The boy’s song continues on and Allura is _rapt._

The strums become longer, fuller. Just as soon as she thought the song was going to speed up, the song slows down to something she could do her bows to. It no longer becomes an embrace, but a teary kiss goodbye. Where did the happy go?

Between the heavy and the deep, little spurts of the opening chords interrupt. A sound that _wants_ to be there but is ultimately chased out by the other. 

The two different feelings challenge each other almost the entire song. A feeling of the discrepancy between the Want and the Present. It feels accusative. If the melody and the harmony weren’t challenging each other, it would be challenging Allura the most.

All too soon, the song is coming to a close. It ends with a pretty trill on high, delicate notes.The embrace returns.

Allura can all too easily imagine herself giving a little _plié_ at the end. As a matter of fact, she can all too easily imagine herself dancing to the whole song.

It’s just too easy.

All to easy is it to march herself to the shop and see the mystery boy play.

It’s…

It’s too easy.

It’s raising no opposition to her.

Because see, it’s far too easy for Allura to yank off the ribbons of her pointe shoes. It’s all too easy for her to throw all her clothes back on, and glide glide g l i d e  out of the studio.

She calls out a “good night, ladies!” and shifts shifts shifts away. 

_This nonsense has been going on too long._

She’s going to see this mystery guitar boy once and for all. 

She’s going to see him, and she’s going to ask if he can play.

She’s going to ask him if he can play that same song again.

 

When the door opens, the overhead bells don’t tinkle but _crash_ against the surface. Keith and Shiro startle in their seats, whipping their heads right towards the entrance. On the other side of the threshold ( _at last_ ) stands the woman of Keith’s guilty daydreams. With piercing, proper posture and a glowing smile, she looks at both of the shocked men sitting before.

She entreats, “who was that just now playing?”

Shiro and Keith look to each other for a hot second. The teacher widens his eyes, juts his chin out and prompts his friend.

Sputtering, Keith answers “Uh, that was. That was me.”

“Wonderful!” She quickly steps towards him. 

Her closeness almost _crowds_ him. It’s not like he’s going to say anything about it, though. (Not like her closeness is anything he’s going to complain about.)

Placing her hands on his shoulders, she asks if he “Might you be amenable to play that song you just did?”

Is this girl for _real_? How the hell is Keith going to play anything at all when his heart, his pulse, his thoughts are all scrambled. He swears, he can feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. His heart is going to beat itself out of his chest-

He gets it together enough to say “Which song?” stupidly. So very, very stupidly.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” flustered flustered is Allura. She can feel all the blood race to her face, her ears. Her chest. She persists because no longer is she going to let the Want and the Reality to be different things. “I could hear you through the floorboards. Your playing. I thought it was beautiful. I wondering if you could play it again, so I could hear it better. I haven’t been able to hear you as well because you used to keep your volume lower, but obviously the case was different today.”

_This woman thinks my playing is beautiful?_

“Yes. Yes, I do. If that’s quite alright of me to say,” she bows her head.

 _Sh-OOT_ he said that out loud!

Putting them both out of their misery, Shiro pats Keith’s leg. He greets and excuses himself at once. “Keith would love to play the song for you. He actually wrote it himself.”

“ _Really?”_

He immediately takes his leave after he sees the dilating of both their eyes. Shiro knows that look.

The look where Keith’s vision constricts to exclusively the dancer before him. The look where Allura’s vision is Keith, and her thoughts are all inquisitions of him.

She asks the most pressing of all: “Your name is Keith?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m Keith.” _Turnaround is fair play! Ask the same, ask the same!_ “What is your name?”

“I’m Allura.”

 _Allura._ Keith could chew, savor and swallow her name until his jaw hurt. 

And as sweet as that may be, neither of them are super keen on this silence their stalemate induced. 

“You really liked it?” his voice diffuses, just to fill it.

The lady beams. “I loved it, Keith! I actually…” _damn it all. Let it out._ “When I heard it, I could actually see myself dancing to it.”

“You could?”

Like his song, Keith’s voice is much softer than it has any right being. Allura forgives his gentle transgression, nodding:

“Absolutely.”

“I’d like to see that sometime.”

Keith did not mean to let that out at all. 

But he wouldn’t take it back for the world. Not if it meant missing out on Allura’s surprised, gleeful face.

“You should bring your guitar to the studio sometime, Keith.” She smiles. “I can dance as you play.”

Keith has been told he was impulsive and fast-reacting his whole life. As it is, he’s having trouble coming to terms with someone else beating him at his own game.

“Could I do that? I mean,” he taps on the neck of his guitar. “Would they let me?"

"I insist. Just once. Think about it.” Allura chances a glance at the clock and “ _crap!_ I'm sorry. I have to get going, but it was nice to finally meet you Keith."

As the woman streams out the door the same way she came, he isn’t even present of mind enough to internalize her subtle jab at him. His mind is in an atmosphere on a planet that doesn't even exist. He is scarce to desire the descent. 

 _He finally met the dancer._ His mind races all night.

 _Allura_. He has named an angel. He has been granted the touch of the divine.

(Soon will he learn its taste, as well.)

 _This,_ he lies awake on his bed that night. _This is the kind of excitement I’ve always been looking for._

Change? Has never looked so beautiful.


End file.
